


Comrade

by meikuree (rillarev)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Missing Scene, One-Sided Attraction, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillarev/pseuds/meikuree
Summary: “Did you wonder, at any point, if I would shoot you instead?”“Why would I?”Or: Pieck and Annie have a conversation on a battlefield.
Relationships: Pieck Finger/Annie Leonhart
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Comrade

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [同伴](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25298326) by [TheLunatic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLunatic/pseuds/TheLunatic). 



> Summary and additional tags added by translator.
> 
> Warning: some descriptions of violence, and mentions of blood.

The bullet grazed Annie’s hair as it whizzed past, hitting the attacker sneaking up on Annie faultlessly in the head. Annie felt no fear when the still-warm blood splattered across her face. A monster like her who had consumed the flesh of its own kind ought to not feel any needless emotions for the destruction of life. Still, her heart was being gripped with fear, shuddering with both irrepressible desire and loathing— her pupils were now dilating as they came face to face with the pitch-black muzzle of a gun, steadily being aimed in her direction by Pieck. The tiny, black dot metamorphosed into a bottomless, black hole that promised to draw forth her entire body, both flesh and mind, into it, to be minced into crimson quicksand and then dripped into a torrential galaxy[[1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241351/#note1)]. Perhaps in the next second Pieck would pull the trigger, and send forth a bullet to pierce her skull between the brows and blow up her brain. The thought rose unbidden into her mind, difficult to restrain, and every drop of blood in her body burned with a searing cold.

But the scene she had imagined never came to pass. Pieck lowered her gun, and called her name with a smile, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened: “Let’s go, Annie.”

She dithered for just a second and then complied, walking over to Pieck’s side, only to be caught off guard when Pieck cradled her face in her cool hands, and pressed the barrel of her gun against her cheek with a single command: “Don't move.” Annie stared stiffly at her, and felt Pieck run a hand through the hair on the side of her head to brush something off. A drop of blood that was not hers fell onto the ground.

“All done.” Pieck smiled, and continued walking ahead.

“Pieck,” she followed behind, calling her comrade’s name in a low voice, “... you’re a good shot.”

Hearing this, Pieck turned her head to give her a cheerful smile. “Thank you.”

Annie lowered her head in silence. She didn’t know why she had blurted out those meaningless words. It was unlike the usual manner of foolish things that she _would_ do. She was counting on Pieck not to notice these subtleties in her mood— it would be best for her not to, because not even Annie herself could make sense of what she was thinking.

Pieck asked out of the blue, nonetheless: “Why that face? Annie, are you scared?”

“Huh?” At the unexpected question, she hastened to conceal her uneasiness[[2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241351/#note2)]. Fortunately, she had always shown an indifferent face to the people around her. But Pieck was now looking back at her, with those eyes that seemed able to see through everything.

“If my marksmanship hadn't been up to scratch, the bullet would have hit you, no?” Pieck tapped her temple with her free hand. “Whether I’d intended it or not, if my aim had been just that slightest bit off, it would have gone through your brain.”

 _So what if it’d hit me?_ Annie thought. _To holders of the power of the Titans like us, it would be nothing more than a scratch._ But she did not say these thoughts aloud. “If you hadn’t been sure of your aim, you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.”

“Have that much faith in me, do you?” Pieck said, cracking up suddenly.

“It’s nothing like that.” These words sounded somewhat strange. Annie could not resist taking a glance at Pieck, but nothing unusual troubled the expression on her face. “I understand the way you handle your gun, that’s all.”

“Did you wonder, at any point, if I would shoot you instead?”

“Why would I?”

Why wouldn’t she have? Wondered? Of course she’d wondered about it— wondered more than once about it, in fact, and wondered about it even in the moment just before this one. For whatever unexplainable reason, there had been a possibility that Pieck would have shot her, that Annie could have died at the hands of her gun. These absurd, baseless thoughts— which made one feel sinful, even just looming in one’s mind— were now causing her to shudder with fear, and driving her wild with fascination at the same time. Perhaps it was because the way Pieck looked whenever she aimed her gun was incredibly mesmerising. Perhaps it was because her curiosity had been piqued by what she would look like to Pieck’s eyes, seen through her focused gaze as she trained her gun upon her. Perhaps it was because her heart had been transfixed by the wild thought of dying at a comrade's hands. It was true— she had indeed fantasised about what it would feel like to be run through by one of Pieck’s bullets.

Nothing about that could be considered sweet. But the taste of danger was like the bitter tang of hard liquor, choking out tears from and enthralling one all the same. 

“Could it be that you assumed I wouldn’t shoot you just because I’m your comrade, Annie?” But she asked this as if she was simply cracking a joke.

“Could it be that you’d turn your back?” Annie countered.

“Turn my back on whom?” Pieck chuckled. Annie knew she had just asked a foolish question— as if anyone would have responded, _I’d turn my back on Marley_. And so, after a brief silence, she moved to answer: “Turn your back on me.”

Pieck widened her eyes imperceptibly, as if taken by surprise. But she quickly replied: “No, I wouldn’t betray my comrades.”

“I meant, would you betray _me_?” Annie stubbornly insisted.

Annie supposed Pieck had been able to grasp what she meant. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have turned away to avoid her gaze. Pieck never answered her question, in the end; she simply looked up gently to gaze at the gunpowder smoke on the horizon, as the roar of artillery shells mingled with the piercing screams of people being eaten by titans. 

Annie sunk into silence; she wasn't sure what else there was she could say. The sunset was razing the faraway sky into a blood-red expanse. She felt as if she’d been doing meaningless thing after meaningless thing today, and she was unwilling to dwell upon why that was. They walked shoulder to shoulder among the ruins as fires swept through the battered city. 

“After this battle, you’re all going to be headed for Paradis, yes?” Pieck suddenly asked. 

“Something like that, yes— what of it?”

“On that island, you’ll have to live together with the people there, just as there’ll come the day when you have to take the lives of those very people. You'll meet new comrades, Annie, and also be destined to betray those same comrades.”

“They won’t count… they’ll be false relationships, people I’ll know I have to deceive and betray from the start.”

“Then what’s real, Annie?” Pieck stared into her eyes. “The relationships staked upon sharing the same uniform? Or the destinies bound together by the power of the Titans?”

“You know all of these are but false as well,” she continued, “you care less than anyone else about all this, Annie— if that’s the case, why are you still so scared?”

_You who fear betrayal, you who long for betrayal, just what do you believe in?_

But Pieck didn’t seem too attached to getting an answer. While Annie was absorbed in thought, she broke suddenly into a run in the burning ruins, tugging at Annie’s hand and pulling Annie into a run along with her. Amidst the endless smoke and fire, Annie looked up, and watched the bloody remnants of the sun sink into the sea of clouds above.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [TheLunatic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLunatic/) for writing this story and giving me permission to translate it! If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving kudos/comments for the original author either on this translation or the original work.
> 
> **Translation Footnotes:**
> 
> [[1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241351/#back1)] The word used for ‘galaxy’ in the original text is 星河/xīng hé, which is literally translated as ‘star river’. The galaxy is described as ‘torrential’ in the original, in a way that's meant to compare the galaxy to a river (this imagery is unfortunately lost in translation, somewhat). 
> 
> [[2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241351/#back2)] The original word used here, 心虚/xīn xū, does not solely mean 'uneasiness'; it is defined as a certain diffidence or uneasiness, but can also mean 'to have a guilty conscience', or 'to be afraid of (something) being found out'. All these apply to Annie in here, but I realised that it would have been quite a mouthful for the reader if I wrote, 'Annie hastened to conceal her fear of being sussed out', and opted for the more pithy 'uneasiness' instead.


End file.
